underneath the stars ▷ gmw

ii. its been a while.

after her last class of the day, zay meets melanie at her locker, who is talking with riley.

"hi riley, hey mels," he smiles widely.

"hi zay." they greet in unison.

"could we hangout at my house today?"

"all three of us?"

"if you want," zay offers.

"i absolutely would, except maya needs me to go to the baywindow right after school," riley sighs, upset at missing a chance to get to know melanie.

"its okay riley, maybe another time we can hang." melanie reassures her. "um, sure zay. but we have detention, remember?"

"oh yeah. let's go to that first," zay realises, and both the girls chuckle.

they enter their history teacher's classroom, which looks like pure chaos. you could hear screaming down the hallway.

"oh no," riley facepalms, then rushing into the classroom.  zay and melanie stand next to the door, hiding behind it but peeking in every few seconds.

"maya, calm down. i'm sure it isn't that bad," matthews tries to reassure her.

"yes it is! i messed up and now riley's her new best friend." riley came in at the exact moment maya said this.

"peaches, i just met melanie. you're my sister. i just thought she needed a friend." riley approaches maya.

"should we go in?" zay whispers.

"is it safe for us to?" melanie replies.

"yeah, i think so." and they creep in, trying to draw the least amount of attention to themselves.

"there she is!" maya yells.

"w-what?" mel was taken aback by maya's shouting.

"i don't like you,"

"don't you mean, 'i'm sorry'?" farkle tries to change maya's words.

"nope,"

"now isn't the best time, maya." zay's voice heeds a warning.

"things are changing. you're changing things. i don't like that, i don't like you." maya growls half heartedly.

melanie starts hyperventilating. "what, did i ever, do to you?" she gets out.

"melanie, are you alright?" the history teacher gets up, concernedly.

"told you, you should have taken the pill." zay rummages through melanie's bag for the bottle of medicine. "take it."

"damn, you're always right." melanie swallows the pill and sits down.

"you know it," zay smirks.

"so now that... that is settled, we can get on to detention. as most of you know, i like to do my detention a little bit differently than other teachers. today, we're gonna focus on this. zay, lucas, smackle, farkle, riley, run now! go go go!" and the six of them rushed out, while maya stared out of the other side of the door, wondering what mr. matthews was planning. he locked the door, without a word.